Being a weeklie podcaste from Madison, Wisconsin featuring several remarkable curiosities therein occurring being a compendium of live music from divers artistes
Sometimes Warrior, Sometimes Mystical
March 10th, 2006
KTU plays music with sounds that are very familiar yet their music is probably unlike anything you’ve ever heard. Just look at the line-up:
Kimmo POHJONEN – accordion, voice
Samuli KOSMINEN – accordion samples, voice samples
Pat MASTELOTTO – drums and rhythmic devices
Trey GUNN – Warr guitar
Pohjonen and Kosminen are a couple Finnish musicians that are also known as Kluster. Mastelotto and Gunn are the former rhythm section of King Crimson. (Gunn has left the band while Mastelotto remains a Crimso.) This unlikely double duo started in 2004 but the genesis of the group traces back to the SXSW festival in Austin, TX in 1999 when Pohjonen shared a bill with the Crimson offshoot, ProjeKt Three, which featured Mastelotto and Gunn. Sporting a mohawk, Pohjonen does anything but play the accordian in a traditional manner. He uses all manner of effects and takes samples of his playing and loops them. Add Kosminen’s samples, Mastelotto’s percussion, and Gunn with his Warr touch guitar (a guitar-like contraption with about a million strings which is, apparently, akin to playing a guitar and a keyboard simultaneously) and you’ve got quite a heady mix. Some parts are very ethereal where one can barely recognize the accordian along with sampled voices distorted and warped. Other times the band just kicks out the jams. If you’re a Crimson fan like myself, the Mastelotto/Gunn combination will immediately sound familiar but then the accordian and all the samples hit you and take you someplace soncially far removed from King Crimson.
(Photo by Koh Okabe)
The band released 8 Armed Monkeys last fall and did a handful of gigs around Europe. They are going to be playing again this spring though, at this point, the closest stop is on 19 May in Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada. Samples of the album can be found at Pohjonen’s website while three of the songs can be heard in their entirety at the band’s page at MySpace.com.
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